SuperSite Blog : Podcast

SkyDrive Explorer

pthurrott — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:06:32 GMT

I've been hoping and looking for some kind of solution that would let people access their 25 GB of free storage space on Windows Live SkyDrive using simple, Explorer-based drag and drop. It's been kind of a tough slog all year, however, with only one solution, Gladinet, which is hard to configure and buggy in use. But now a new contender has arrived, and while it's not perfect, it's much better than Gladinet. It's called SkyDrive Explorer, and as promised, it does provide Explorer-based drag and drop access to your SkyDrive account. The only issue I've seen is that you can't drag and drop collections of folders into SkyDrive. Instead, you can only drag files (at least that I've seen), while manually creating folders on the cloud side.

Anyway, I was hoping to hold off on this one for the podcast, but I've easily gotten 100 emails about it already, so I guess the cat is out of the bag. Thanks to everyone that wrote in about this tool.

Tip of the Week: Speed Up Zune Marketplace Searches

pthurrott — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:13:26 GMT

And with this I enter the "if I think I see it, it must be true" sweepstakes: Frank F. has just sent along a brilliant tip about speeding up Zune Marketplace searches. And if you use the Zune PC software, you know what I'm talking about: You search for something and on the left side, the search results for your local content are returned instantly while on the right side, you stare at a pink progress bar as it slowly parses and then loads the Zune Marketplace search results. Well, this will fix that problem. Or, I should say, on the two PCs I've tested this on, this really does seem to solve the problem. Zune Marketplace searches are now as fast as local searches.

In IE, navigate to Tools, Internet Options, and then the Connection tab. Click the LAN settings button and then uncheck "Automatically detect settings."

That's it. And it totally works. Or at least it does here. Give it a shot.

Thanks Frank!

Software pick of the week: Windows 7 Logon Background Changer

pthurrott — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:04:28 GMT

I recommend a software pick of the week in each episode of the Windows Weekly podcast, but this one is particularly nice, so I wanted to toss it out in case you're not listening. It's called Windows 7 Logon Background Changer, and as the name suggests, it lets you easily replace the Windows 7 logon screen background with an image of your choosing.

Windows 7 Logon Background Changer is a free open source software that let you change the wallpaper of the Windows 7 login screen. It has been tested successfully with the final version of Windows 7 (RTM) and Windows 7 RC 7100.

On a side note, this small program is WPF based, it's a nice technical demo of Windows Presentation Foundation capabilities for those interested in WPF. It requires a decent GPU for the 3D animations to run smoothly. It runs fine with my Radeon HD 3200 on my laptop computer, but it should also work with lower end graphic cards, albeit slowly.

Developers can also download the source code. Thanks to Michael for the tip!

WinToFlash: Automate making a bootable, USB-based Windows 7 installer

pthurrott — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:01:19 GMT

Nice! It looks like I have my software pick of the week early this week:

What is WinToFlash

WinToFlash starts a wizard that will help pull over the contents of a Windows installation CD or DVD and prep the USB drive to become a bootable replacement for the optical drive. It can also do this with your LiveCD.

You don't have to worry about scratches on the disc or misplacing your original media discs once you transfer their contents to the flash drive. The optical drive is quickly becoming a thing of the past, especially in office environments, as media is shifted to the cloud.

Note that this works with XP and Vista as well as Windows 7.

A Plea to Paul and Leo of Windows Weekly

pthurrott — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:08:50 GMT

This is funny, though I feel bad that I basically caused this. Long story short, on the Windows Weekly podcast last week, we played a couple of clips from ex-Windows Chief Jim Allchin's new CD, Enigma, and I mentioned that, hey, I do know this guy, and maybe we could use on of the more rocking tracks as the theme song for the podcast. It sounds like a good idea on the surface.

The thing is, we already have a good theme song. And the guy that made it, Derek K. Miller, wasn't too happy when he heard Leo and I discussing replacing it. So he came up with this video...

And ... wow. So I feel like a jerk. And obviously, we're sticking with Derek. For the world to see, Sorry Derek. Seriously.

Wakoopa adds downloads and screenshots:

pthurrott — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:46:51 GMT

I use Wakoopa to track the software I use so I can see what I use most often. (I recommend it for this purpose as well.) The Wakoopa blog reports this week that they've added some interesting new features to the service.

The regular surfers on Wakoopa may have already noticed it, but we’re now announcing it for everybody interested: we’ve added downloads and screenshots to our software pages.

Out of the survey-responses these were much requested features and we think they are indeed a valuable addition to the software pages.

Check for instance our own tracker page. On the right side of the page there is the clear download button and a selection of the available screenshots.

As with our other meta-data on software, we’re relying on our users to be so kind to submit download links and upload screenshots. So feel free to provide downloads and screenshots for your favorite applications.

So next time you receive an alert of your contact using a new game or if you’re looking for the right tool for the job, look at the screenshots and download the application with just a couple of clicks. Enjoy!

New Zune Insider podcast

pthurrott — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:44:04 GMT

Microsoft's Cesar Menendez and Rob Greenlee have started a new Zune podcast that might be of interest. New episodes every Thursday, they say, and apparently there will be a video version coming as well.

Podcasting guru Rob Greenlee and I will be producing a weekly audio and video podcast, where we’ll cover everything Zune: software, devices, cool content in marketplace, accessories, events and more. Have a listen to the first episode by subscribing in Zune Marketplace, or you can just download the MP3 from here.

Here is the direct RSS feed link: http://zuneinsider.feeds.zune.net/rss

And of course, here's the deeplink to Zune Marketplace:

If you have ideas for topics to cover, or people to talk to, whether in the blog or in the podcast, drop a comment!

Cesar is the guy behind the original Zune blog, Zune Insider, btw.

This is interesting timing for the podcast, in my opinion: The Zune typically goes through months of silence between updates, so this seems like a great idea for filling in the holes. I hope it turn into something useful and positive for what is a promising but curiously lacking digital media platform. I've been using the Zune a lot lately as part of a "going all in" experiment which I'll detail later. I like the Zune a lot, but man does it need a lot of work, both in small ways (fit and finish, curiously missing features) and large (audio book support, movie rentals, better devices, etc.).

Windows Vista tip of the week: Looking anew at Vista's Disk Defragmenter

pthurrott — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:53:43 GMT

OK, this may not seem like a big deal, but Microsoft has changed the Disk Defragmenter utility in Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1). In the original shipping version of Windows Vista, the Disk Defragmenter (as described in this Feature Focus article) was completely automatic: It would defrag all of your partitions, every night, starting at 1:00 am. This seemed like a great idea to me, but apparently some users complained that they’d prefer to have the ability to choose which partitions were defragged. That ability was added with SP1. Here’s what it looks like now:

So, if you haven’t ever looked at Disk Defragmenter in Windows Vista, do so now (Start Search, "defrag") and make sure it’s set up to automatically defrag your disks. If you have looked at, but have installed SP1, make sure you’re defragging only those disks you wan to defrag.

Windows Updates Downloader

pthurrott — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:22:20 GMT

Here's a cool Windows utility that could end up as my software pick this week. Looks very interesting, especially for your slipstreaming mavens out there:

One of the great things about creating unattended Windows installations is that you can integrate all of the latest updates into the installation and avoid spending hours waiting for the updates to download and install themselves after a fresh installation. As time goes on since the last service pack was released, the list of Windows updates tends to grow to be quite lengthy.

Creating an unattended Windows installation solved the installation portion of the problem but all of the updates needed to be manually downloaded before they could be integrated into the installation source. With the quantity of updates quickly approaching triple digits, it was clear something was needed to speed things up. This is where WUD comes along.

WUD allows you to download all of the current Windows Updates using a simple interface. All of the updates are contained in Update Lists (ULs) which allows you to choose which updates you want for which version of Windows. Once WUD has complete it's downloads, you simply integrate them into your Windows source using one of the many popular tools such as nLite.

As time goes on the Windows Updates Downloader continues to evolve. ULs are available for software other then Windows and automatic installation of updates is available on supported versions of Windows. WUD aims to help power users, tweakers and system administrators speed up their unattended installs, network deployments and automatic updates.

A rambling description, but the tool looks excellent.

Thanks Alex.

Windows Vista tip of the week: Forcing windows to remember their sizes, locations, and customizations

pthurrott — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:36:37 GMT

Oh, Windows. If there's one aspect of this operating system that's been a constant disappointment, it has to be its complete and utter inability to "remember" window settings. You know the drill: You go into, say, the Documents folder and customize the windows size, position, and the icon style used to display its contents. Then, when you revisit that folder later—bam!—everything you previously configured was blown away. It's been a problem for years, over many, many versions of Windows. It's still a problem in Windows Vista.

Searching around the Web, you'll see two types of solutions to this problem. These are:

Ridiculous simple. Annoyances.org tells you to hold the Ctrl key when closing a folder window. Aside from the fact that you may actually have to hold the Shift key to make this work (reports differ), the reason we're even discussing this issue is that Vista (like previous Windows versions) simply forgets this customization data.

Ridiculous hard. The Vista Forums has what has to be the most complicated set of instructions I've ever seen for something that, quite frankly, should be simpler than this.

If you're having problems with window customizations, you should try both of these solutions. Truth be told: I've made it work before using the second, more complicated, instructions listed above.

However, very recently, my main desktop (running Windows Vista Ultimate x64) has refused to remember my window customizations. It was driving me batty. And though everything else was working just fine, I was honestly getting ready to blow away the PC and reinstall from scratch because of this one issue. It's really annoying.

In the process of preparing the PC for this reinstall, I deleted an unused partition on its only PC and—using another great new Vista feature, by the way—non-destructively added the space freed by this partition to the Vista x64 system partition. (This functionality, essentially live partition resizing, is part of the Disk Management tool if you're curious.) And once the amount of free space on that partition jumped from about 9 GB of free space to over 70 GB of free space ... my window customization issues completely disappeared. And now, over a week later, I'm happy to report that the issue has indeed completely disappeared. I have no explanation for this. But I'm throwing it out there in case you're experiencing something similar.

You never know.

Windows Vista tip of the week: Using Gmail or Yahoo! Mail as your default Email handler

pthurrott — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:31:05 GMT

As with previous versions of Windows, Windows Vista lets you easily choose between various email applications (Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, Microsoft Outlook, etc.) to pick the default mail handler. (To find this: Right-click the Start button/orb, choose Properties, click Customize next to Start Menu and then view the E-mail link drop down at the bottom of the dialog.) What it doesn't let you do is choose a Web-based mail service like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail.

Fortunately, you can work around this courtesy of two free tools:

gAttach
gAttach is a free program that integrates Gmail into your system as your default email service, to be used by default instead of a local client when you send email or attach files from the desktop, the browser, or any local applications.

yAttach
yAttach! allows you to easily attach files to new messages in the all-new Yahoo! Mail. All the features available in Windows that were once only available to your desktop mail-using friends are now available to all Yahoo! Mail users.

Windows Vista tip of the week: Keyboard shortcuts

pthurrott — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:47:28 GMT

If you're looking to get the most out of Windows, you should master some of the many keyboard shortcuts that are available. These are all specifically based around the Windows Key, which appears on newer PC keyboards:

Quick Launch shortcuts
Shortcut: WinKey + 1, 2, 3 ... etc.

If you use the Quick Launch taskbar toolbar, you can quickly launch up to the first nine shortcuts you keep there using the Windows Key plus a number. So the first shortcut, from left to right, would be WinKey + 1, the second is WinKey + 2, and so on.

Show desktop
Shortcut: WinKey + D

This one hides everything to get you to the desktop, including Windows Sidebar.

Minimize all windows
Shortcut: WinKey + M

This one is subtly different from "Show Desktop." With Show Desktop, the Sidebar is hidden as well, whereas WinKey + M minimizes all active windows ... but not the Sidebar.

Windows Flip 3D
Shortcut: WinKey + Tab

Most people are probably familiar with Windows Flip (Alt + Tab) but you can also enable Windows Flip 3D via the keyboard as well.

New Explorer window
Shortcut: WinKey + E

More shortcuts
Jason C. notes via email that Microsoft maintains a full list of Windows Vista keyboard shortcuts. You can find that list here.

Vista tip of the week: Change file type associations on the fly

pthurrott — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:59:49 GMT

I received an interesting tip this week from Dan via email regarding removing and changing Windows Vista file type associations on the fly. I have to admit, I had never heard of this one:

You can remove a single file type association to more easily reassociate it. (You have to do this under admin rights, however.--Paul)

At a command prompt (cmd.exe) type assoc.file_type= Where file_type is the extension of the file type for which you want to remove the application association. As an example, you could stop PHP files from opening with WordPad by typing assoc.php= and then hitting Enter. The next time you open a PHP file, you will be prompted to choose a program again.

So this does work, but it's somewhat complicated. I recommend using the "Open with" trick instead. This can be used in two instances: When you want to change the association of a particular file type and when you want to just open a file with a different application on the fly. Here's how it works.

Locate the document or other file you'd like to open. Hold down the Shift key and right-click the file. You'll see a new option, Open With, appear. The Open With option will have a sub-menu associated with it. You can choose an option from this menu or select Choose Default Program.

From the Open With window, choose from the list of Recommended Programs. Or, click Browse to find a new program. When you locate a new program, it will appear in the Open With sub-menu and in the Open With dialog going forward. Note too the "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file." It's selected by default, so if you're not trying to change the association, make sure you uncheck it.

Top 10 Tech Podcasts: #5, Windows Weekly

pthurrott — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:51:48 GMT

A nice bit of praise from Automated Home, which is much appreciated:

Podcasts, netcasts, time shifted radio and IPTV. Whatever they are, they've come of age. Less and less of my time is spent consuming regular TV and Radio these days as my hunger for tech-tainment grows. I listen to podcasts on the way to and from work in the car. I watch video podcasts on my PC in my lunch break. I listen to tech shows on the lawnmower and I even fall asleep listening to them at night.

Never before has there been such a variety of shows, or quality of production. If you aren't subscribed to some tech shows you are certainly missing out. So after years of listening and much deliberating here's our top 10 technology podcasts recommendations

5. Windows Weekly

Home Page | iTunes | RSS

Format: Audio / Typical Length: 45 mins

Paul Thurrott joins Leo Laporte for a weekly chat on Windows. Paul tells it like it is and his obvious passion for the OS doesn't automatically mean he's a Microsoft fan-boy. Regularly the chat turns to Mac too and in recent shows he's revealed his laptop of choice is a MacBook, his mobile is an iPhone and he's a .Mac subscriber too. His regular trips to Richmond provide a good insight into what's coming from the mighty MS. He's a fan of Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server and his pick of the week always brings an interesting new app or service that’s worth checking out.

Thanks! --Paul

Windows Vista tip of the week: Change the behavior of the Start Menu Power button

pthurrott — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:27:40 GMT

This one's a quickie, and it comes courtesy of reader/listener Andrew:

In Windows Vista, there's a new Power button in the Start Menu. By default, this button will put your PC into Sleep mode when clicked. But you can change its behavior. The fastest way is to open the Start Menu and type power in Start Menu Search to find the Power Options application. Then, in the left column, select Choose what the power button does. You'll be presented with a UI for choosing between various power management options, including Do Nothing, Sleep, and Shut down.

Thanks Andrew!